Join the surprise party for Beth Kanter!

Happy Birthday!

Today we are throwing an online surprise birthday party for Beth Kanter, and you’re invited!

In her birthday wish post, Beth announces that she’s trying to send 53 Cambodian children to school by raising $530. Last week, Stacy Monk and I were chatting and thought that our community could help smash that goal by raising much more funds as well as awareness for the work the Sharing Foundation does in Cambodia.

How does it work?

We’re hoping to inspire 53 bloggers to publish a post today that shares how Beth has impacted his/her work and shares Beth’s birthday wish with his/her blog audience. (Of course, you’re invited to make a gift to make her wish come true as well!)

What’s the point?

We’re hoping to make her birthday a very happy one by:

making her wish come true, and

reminding her how much she’s contributed to the community.

You’re Invited!

If you’d like to join the surprise party for Beth, simply follow these steps:<

Thanks, Beth!

It’s hard for me to pick just one thing to talk about when it comes to the question of how Beth’s work has influenced mine, after all she is a terrific example, leader, and contributor to the nonprofit technology sector. There’s one thing that does stand out to me and I’d like to highlight it today:

Beth is a terrific chronicler. She takes notes, constantly. She shares those notes in real time (or as near as she can). She’s always open to suggestions, feedback, and comments—and strategically uses those to help herself flesh out the notes as they develop into ideas and insights. When she comes up with a new thread, she finds ways of linking it to other ideas by including reference links to previous blog posts (including her own or by others) to keep track of how developments happened.

She’s a great inspiration and reminder for me in this area. I often end up with thoughts jotted in a note on my phone, ideas to explore written in my notebook and then 5 different links bookmarked that reference the same thought – but don’t take the time to pull them all together! I’m working on it

Thank you, Beth, for all that you do to keep the community involved in every step of your work – know it is appreciated tremendously! And happy birthday!

Wheeeee! Thanks so much Amy and Stacy for coming up with this idea and Amy for launching it. Too perfect timing b/c I have been retweeting #beth53 messages all weekend and wanted to do more as well. In fact was seriously outlining ways Beth’s impacted the who I am in social media sphere when your tweet came over announcing this bday surprise. For me, she’s had the greatest impact on me as a woman in tech…so I get to say “thanks for bringing out the geek in me Beth!” Anyhoo. I’m giggling b/c probably it’s just a few hours before the surprise isn’t Love this idea. Here’s to Beth!

http://www.amysampleward.org Amy Sample Ward

Thanks so much for the comment, Tre – but even more thanks for posting your blog post with such heartfelt thanks for Beth’s work! I’m sure she’ll be honored and flattered. I’m so happy our community could come together today to help Beth support The Sharing Foundation.

About Amy

I am dedicated to supporting and educating organizations and changemakers in the use of evolving technologies that cultivate and engage communities. I am inspired by opportunities to catalyze community building and social action, online and offline, whether it’s through blogging, facilitating, training, or speaking.